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Appreciating Sibelius’s Luonnotar
Op. 70 by Anne Ozorio

Luonnotar (Op.
70, 1913) must be one of the most distinctive
pieces in the repertoire. It transcends
both song and symphonic form. Fiendishly
difficult to perform, this unique piece
needs an appreciation of the very unusual
mind that shaped it. Sibelius was at
a crossroads. With his Fourth Symphony
he was reaching towards new horizons
but hadn’t quite come to terms with
their implications. While he kept up
with Schoenberg and the modernists,
he had long realised that he was not
part of the German tradition. He knew
he was approaching uncharted waters
and the prospect was daunting. As so
often before, he turned to the ur-source
of Finnish mythology for inspiration.

Luonnotar was the Spirit
of Nature, Mother of the Seas, who existed
before creation, floating alone in the
universe before the worlds were made
"in a solitude of ether".
Descending to earth she swam in its
primordial ocean for 700 years. Then
a storm blows up and in torment, she
calls to the god Ukko for help. Out
of the Void, a duck flies, looking for
a place to nest. Luonnotar takes pity
and raises her knee above the waters
so the duck can nest and lay her eggs.
But when the eggs hatch they emit great
heat and Luonnotar flinches. The eggs
are flown upwards and shatter, but the
fragments become the skies, the yolk
sunlight, the egg white the moon, the
mottled bits the stars. This was the
creation myth of the Karelians who represented
the ancient soul of the Finnish cultural
identity.

The Kalevala was a
motherlode for Sibelius, and he adapted
it in a strikingly individual way. The
orchestra may play modern instruments
and the soprano may wear an evening
gown, but ideally they should convey
the power of ancient, shamanistic incantation,
as if by recreating by sound they are
performing a ritual to release some
kind of creative force. The Kalevala
was sung in a unique metre, which shaped
the runes and gave them character, so
even if the words shifted from singer
to singer, the impact would be similar.
Sibelius does not replicate the metre
though his phrases follow a peculiar,
rhythmic phrasing that reflects runic
chant. Instead we have Sibelius’s unique
pulse. In my jogging days, I’d run to
pieces like Night Ride and Sunrise,
finding the swift, "driving"
passages uncommonly close to heart and
breathing rhythms. It felt very organic,
as if the music sprang from deep within
the body. This pulse underpins Luonnotar
too, giving it a dynamism that propels
it along. They contrast with the big
swirling crescendos, walls of sonority,
sometimes with glorious harp passages
that evoke the swirling oceans.

But it is the voice
part which is astounding. Technically
this piece is a killer – there are leaps
and drops of almost an octave within
a single word. When Luonnotar calls
out for help, her words are scored like
strange, sudden swoops of unworldly
sounds supposed to resound across the
eternal emptiness. These hint of the
wailing, keening style that Karelian
singers used. This cannot be sung with
any trace of conservatoire trained artifice:
the sounds are supposed to spring from
primeval forces. After the duck approaches
in a quite delightful passage of dancing
notes, the goddess who expresses agony
for its predicament. Those cries of
"Ei! Ei!" – and their echo
– sound avant-garde even by modern standards.
The breath control required for this
must be formidable. Singing over the
cataclysmic orchestral climax that builds
up from "Tuuli kaatavi, tuuli kaatavi!"
must be quite some challenge. The sonorous
wall of sound Sibelius creates is like
the tsunami described in the text, and
the soprano is riding on its crest.

Luonnotar is
a complex creature, godlike and childlike
at the same time, strong enough to survive
eons of floating in ravaged seas, yet
gentle enough to cradle a hapless duck.
The singer needs to convey that raw
primal energy, yet also somehow show
the kindness and humour. The sheer physical
stamina of singing this tour de force
probably accounts for its relative
rarity on the concert platform. Luonnotar
swam underwater for centuries, so a
soprano attempting this must pray for
"swimmers lungs".

The last passages in
the piece are brooding, strangely shaped
phrases which again seem to reflect
runic chanting, as if the magical incantation
is building up to fulfilment. And indeed,
when the creation of the stars is revealed,
the orchestra explodes in a burst of
ecstasy. The singer recounts the wonder,
with joy and amazement: "Tähiksi
taivaale, ne tähiksi taivaale".
("They became the stars in the
heavens!"). I can just imagine
a singer eyes shining with excitement
at this point - and with relief, too,
that she’s survived! As Erik Tawaststjerna
said, "the soprano line is built
on the contrast between … the epic and
narrative and the atmospheric and magical".

In his minimalist text,
Sibelius doesn’t tell us that Luonnotar
goes on to carve out the oceans, bays
and inlets and create the earth as we
know it, or tell us that she became
pregnant by the storm and gave birth
later to the first man. But understanding
this piece helps to understand Sibelius’s
work and personality. Like the goddess,
he was struggling with creative challenges
and beset by self-doubt and worry. Perhaps
through exploring the ancient symbolism
of the Kalevala, he was able in some
way to work out some ideas: in Luonnotar,
I can hear echoes of the great blocks
of sound and movement in the equally
concise and to the point Seventh Symphony.
The year after Luonnotar, Sibelius
was to explore ocean imagery again in
The Oceanides, whose Finnish
title is Aallottaret, or "Spirit
of the Waves", just as Luonnotar
was the Spirit of Nature, tossed by
waves. The Oceanides, written
for a lucrative commission from the
United States, is a more popular work,
and beautiful, but doesn’t have quite
the unconventional intensity and uniqueness
of Luonnotar. Soon after, the
First World War broke out, and the Finnish
War of Independence, and Sibelius’ life
changed yet again.

Luonnotar was
written for, and premiered by the great
Finnish soprano, Aino Ackté.
Given that she was a diva, I’m not sure
what she would have made of the grittier
aspects of the piece, but she was a
Finnish nationalist after all, and knew
its implications. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
was another early champion. When she
sang it in Helsinki in 1955, she was
moved to say that it was the "best
thing she had ever done in her life".
It was also central to the repertoire
of Elisabeth Söderström, who
was so deeply attuned to the composer’s
idiom. Her recording, made with Ashkenazy,
was for years the best version readily
available, and remains a classic. Also
worth tracking down is the version by
the Danish soprano Mari-Ann Häggander.
Recordings, though, don’t necessarily
reflect what’s happening in the music
world. Soile Isokoski sings it in recital
so frequently that she’s become identified
with it. The recording by Karita Mattila
is a big seller, because she’s such
a big name … and good. There’s lots
of choice these days. I’ve heard most
of those available, and have some strong
favourites … and a few I don’t like.
But by far, the best advice is always
to keep listening, to as many versions
as possible, to hear how performances
bring insight. If you really love a
piece of music, it gets addictive, and
good performers create anew each time.
Genuine appreciation really only comes
through the process of listening and
understanding.

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